


and just cause i predicted this doesn't make it any easier to live with

by Skaapsteker



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: AU, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Fix-It, introspection is quickly becoming my favourite fic genre to write, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaapsteker/pseuds/Skaapsteker
Summary: In which Clearsight finally lives up to every sense of her name.





	and just cause i predicted this doesn't make it any easier to live with

The night that Clearsight hatched, one of the moons had loomed much larger in the sky than anyone could ever remember. So maybe her parents shouldn’t have been so surprised when their daughter grew to become a very anxious, extremely withdrawn dragonet, one who devoted nearly every waking moment to mapping things that might never come to be.  
Clearsight couldn’t remember a single moment of her life that hadn’t been touched by visions. The simple act of existing brought new cascades of them, endless timelines to be chased down and traced, lest a tiny misstep lead to the downfall of everything she knew and loved. To any other dragon, it would’ve been pure, horrific torture, but to her it was just life.  
Now that everything had actually ended, though, something had shifted inside of her. The storm was over, the disaster had happened, and there was nowhere to go but up.  
As Clearsight soared over the ocean, like a giant seagull on star-studded wings, things finally began to fall in line. (Funny how tracing the actual lines of time made for a real mental jumble.) And she began to ponder questions she’d never stopped to think of before.  
 _What if Darkstalker himself, and our relationship, was the real storm all along?_ she thought as the waves battered a seaweed-covered rock below. It seemed ridiculous at first. How could a love with such great potential be a storm? But now that she thought of it, relationships like her mother and father, and Whiteout and Thoughtful, didn't involve nearly as much pain as her and Darkstalker, no constant terror of their other half turning evil and dragging everyone else down screaming, no overwhelming responsibility to subvert all the terrible futures stemming from their loved one. And they’d never trick or be tricked to accept something that would erase their full ability to make choices.  
Clearsight had always thought that their love was meant to be different, that everything was supposed to be distinct from the way that normal dragons did it. But now she was realizing that she’d had it wrong - love wasn’t supposed to hurt so much. And making such a big distinction between _normal_ and _special_ dragons - wasn’t that kind of how Darkstalker had thought?  
Maybe all of those good timelines had been less probable than she thought.  
Her name was suddenly quite ironic, she realized, looking to the next resting stop as the sun began to near the horizon.

When Clearsight saw the oncoming hurricane in her mind’s eye, she panicked for a heartbeat, thinking of how to best warn the dragons of the lost continent. But then she looked a little further, and saw that when she arrived, the beach would already be vacant, the dragons who looked like plants and butterflies already having fled further inland.  
Of course, she realized. Why did she assume that they wouldn’t know the warning signs of a hurricane? After all, it wasn’t like it was the first one in the history of the continent.  
 _That was kind of arrogant of me,_ she thought, already searching for a place to wait it out.

It wouldn’t be the last time that Clearsight had such a realization. Originally, she’d been planning to teach as many Pantalans as she could to speak Pyrrhian, but then it occurred to her: how would she and all the other NightWings have felt if, say, a SilkWing had arrived in the Night Kingdom and tried to make everyone learn Pantalan? Why should so many dragons have to learn a new language just to communicate with a single newcomer? Maybe a few could learn and teach it to later generations, for ease of possible future interactions, but that would be as far as it went. She’d just learn Pantalan herself, and have everyone else be able to talk to her without spending large amounts of their time and effort.  
And then there was the issue of her prophetic abilities. On the one talon, it was only right to warn of bad things that could happen. But on the other talon, after a couple of minor but unambiguously real predictions, a small group of dragons had taken to what could only be described as _worshipping_ her. And that didn’t feel right at all. It was too close to what Darkstalker had wanted for himself, and besides, she didn’t want to cause a huge change in a place she wasn’t born to.  
Eventually, Clearsight came up with a compromise. She’d tell those around her of things that could be averted, but ask them to remember that she was just another dragon with some differences, not a goddess incarnate.  
(Of course, a few rare dragons took to privately writing down all her predictions from memory, but she couldn’t really stop them from doing that.)

One breezy evening, about a year and a half after her arrival on Pantala, Clearsight found her heart aching extra-hard for the memories of her old life. A single “You okay?” from Sunstreak brought all the memories flooding out of her, and then he held her in his wings as she cried.  
After drying her eyes, Clearsight looked at the sky. The moons were rising, and the sky was a deep, cloudless violet - a perfect evening for a flight.  
“Sunstreak, can we fly?” she asked, breaking away from his embrace.  
“Sure.” He folded his wings, and then spread them again. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think you could have saved him. Dragons like him - you were shining a light on his path, but he only saw an annoying too-bright glare.”  
“You’re right, Sunstreak.” said Clearsight. “You really are right. Let’s go.”  
They took off into the sky, soaring high over the darkening savannah. The temperature was dropping, but Clearsight felt the warmth of her new life, this new love that never required hours upon hours of pain-filled searches for good endings and plans to dodge all the bad ones.  
The Pyrrhian Clearsight, queen of all possibilities, was long gone. The Pantalan Clearsight, a very helpful (if somewhat odd) villager, was still new.  
She finally felt whole.

Clearsight looked over at Fathom, who was himself looking over the scape. Laying not too far away from them was a dignified RainWing who had once been a queen, chatting up a LeafWing who nodded his head enthusiastically at everything she said. Sunstreak wasn’t too far away - he was weaving through a group of MudWing sibs who wore the insignia of the MudWing-SandWing war. In the distance, she could see Indigo flying over the lake.  
A throaty gasp drew Clearsight’s attention. She looked over to where it had come from, and saw a young male dragon, a NightWing-RainWing hybrid judging by his shifting, multicoloured wing-stars. He walked slightly awkwardly, a nocturnal rainbow stumbling into this realm.  
“I’m sorry, but do I know you two?” he asked, pointing at Clearsight and Fathom.  
“No,“ said Fathom, and then his eyes widened. Clearsight knew what he was feeling - an odd sense of familiarity washed over her as she looked at this dragon. Although maybe it was just due to the fact that his body type, facial structure, and voice were all fairly similar to Darkstalker’s.  
“Who are you, exactly?” she asked.  
The stranger touched his temples, then took his talons away again and began to talk. “I’m Peacemaker. The first of the RainWing hybrids, you know, living in the new Night Kingdom. I’m… I used to be kind of famous for loving strawberries. Even wrote a song about it. I went to sleep yesterday, and now I’m here and I’m young again, and now I recognize you even though I’ve never seen you two in my life, so this is very confusing…” He trailed off, and suddenly his image flickered.   
And for a long moment, he was seemingly a full NightWing, but for the silver line of scales under his half-spread wings…  
“Cl-” he began to cry, face lighting up, but then for an instant the ground where he stood trembled and he faded halfway out, and then he was the half-RainWing again and it was like nothing had happened.  
“Clearsight?” Peacemaker asked. “Is that your name?”  
Tears welled in Clearsight’s eyes.  
“Yes,” she said quietly.  
“How do I know your name?” asked Peacemaker.  
Clearsight wondered if they had anything more to lose, or if it was even possible to lose anything here.  
“I could tell you everything.” she said. “Though I can’t guarantee you’ll stay here if you know.”  
“I feel like there was love here.” he said. “And isn’t love whole and good?”  
And yet…  
What would be better? To spend eternity with this… second chance, or to tell and lose every trace forever?  
Clearsight thought for a few seconds, and made her decision.


End file.
